John Calvin Commentary Exodus 3:14

"And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." — Exodus 3:14 (ASV)

I am that I am. The verb in the Hebrew is in the future tense, “I will be what I will be;” but it has the same force as the present, except that it designates perpetual duration. It is very plain that God attributes divine glory to Himself alone, because He is self-existent and therefore eternal, and thus gives being and existence to every creature.

Nor does He ascribe to Himself anything common or shared by others; instead, He claims eternity for Himself as unique to God alone, so that He may be honored according to His dignity. Therefore, immediately afterward, contrary to grammatical usage, He used the same verb in the first person as a substantive, annexing it to a verb in the third person, so that our minds may be filled with admiration whenever His incomprehensible essence is mentioned.

But although philosophers speak in grand terms about this eternity, and Plato constantly affirms that God is peculiarly τὸ ὄν (the Being), they do not wisely and properly apply this title—namely, that this one and only Being of God absorbs all imaginable essences, and that, consequently, the chief power and government of all things belong to Him.

For from where does the multitude of false gods come, if not from impiously tearing the divided Deity into pieces by foolish imaginations? Therefore, to apprehend the one God rightly, we must first know that all things in heaven and earth derive⁴³ their essence or subsistence at His will from One, who alone truly is.

From this Being all power is derived; because, if God sustains all things by His excellence, He also governs them at His will. And how would it have profited Moses to gaze upon the secret essence of God, as if it were confined to heaven, unless, being assured of His omnipotence, he had obtained from it the shield of his confidence?

Therefore, God teaches him that He alone is worthy of the most holy name, which is profaned when improperly transferred to others; and then He sets forth His inestimable excellence, so that Moses may have no doubt of overcoming all things under His guidance. We will consider in the sixth chapter the name of Jehovah, of which this is the root.

⁴³ Precario. —. — Lat. De grace. — . De grace. — Fr..